Video:Songwriting With Nelly Furtado: How to Mix Genres

Transcript:Songwriting With Nelly Furtado: How to Mix Genres

Songwriting: Mixing Genres

"How would you advise someone who's maybe struggling to find the cohesion that you've been so successful with mixing genres?"

How to Mix Genres in Music

I think that a lot of the music that I have made – yes, it's eclectic, and yes, I do dabble in different genres, from hip hop to folk to rick to latin music – the thread that holds it together is my voice, and I think you have to be tasteful in the way you combine sounds. I think less is more. 

So if you're making music and you just heard an amazing polka band and you're thinking “How do I infuse this polka music into my R&B song?” Well, it might be just a sample, it might just be this one accordion sample that you start with, with a beat. It's almost like dressing, when you put an outfit together, you're not going to put twenty colors on at once.  You're going to pick a black neutral outfit and then wear really bright earrings or maybe a bright shoe. It's kind of like that with music when you're trying to mix styles and genres. 

You have to choose your influences carefully and start slowly, and just build slowly and try to mix it that way. Also just be yourself and have your interests, be organic, and be honest about what your influences are. So when artists start to be honest about their influences and their music reflects that and they're not afraid to go there, I think good things happen.